Journey to the heartland: ANU Ancient History students in the Mediterranean
Since 2011, the Centre for Classical Studies in the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics has been teaching overseas courses each January in Turkey, Greece or Italy. Students who have read the literature and studied the history of the ancient Greek and Roman world get their chance to see at first hand the places where that history was made: great cities; small towns; fortified sites; sanctuaries; as well as the landscape in which they existed. They also visit many superb museums, seeing a far greater range of Classical art than is available in Australia. For the students, all this gives flesh to their own imagining of Classical civilisation.
Italy 2017
The January 2017 course goes to Italy, where we will start in Reggio di Calabria. The group will travel through Sicily, circumnavigating the entire island, before moving on to southern Italy, where we will spend some time in Paestum, Pompeii, Herculaneum and Naples. The course will be taught by Dr Chris Bishop and Dr Peter Londey of the Centre for Classical Studies.
Italy/Sicily 2017
On Wednesday the 18th of January ANU Classics Students on the Italy and Sicily tour participated in Museum Selfie Day. The aim of this was to highlight museums, in particular small museums. In circumstances that could only have been concocted by...
On a windy Saturday morning, we visited the site of the Ancient Greek settlement of Morgantina in Sicily. The site contained many differences to most of the other Greek sites that we had visited, most noticeably its lack of a temple, a stereotypical...
It was mid-November and I found myself sitting in a class room well past the completion of my semester two exams. I was in the midst of a weeklong series of lectures for our impending class trip to Italy. While I was both intellectually exhausted...
As a person who has already been on the ANU trips to Turkey and Greece, I had resigned myself to the unfortunate truth that I was not going to experience anymore ‘firsts’ with this years’ trip to southern Italy and Sicily. However, on our third day...
Greece 2016
The Lion Gate stood ahead of us, and marked the entrance to the ancient citadel of Mycenae. The path up to this point has been unassuming, yet, when I reached the impressive gate, thoughts ran wild through my head.
I thought about the return of...
Our first stop during our day in Lakonia was the Archaeological Museum of Sparta. While the collection was small, it had a distinctiveness, namely many motifs of the Dioskouroi, snakes, and perhaps some Syrian stylistic influences, that left us...
On Friday we travelled from Kalamata, situated on the south coast of the Peloponnese, and headed inland to the Late Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman site of Messene. Messene is one of the lesser known ancient sites, which is odd as the site has...
The thing that I wasn't expecting about Attica was enjoying those places outside Athens more than those within. Case in point; the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion. Given that the sea makes up 75% of your surroundings, it is pretty obvious why this...
A relaxing day with only Olympia to visit. The site is amazing and despite Zeus' best with the rain we spent hours exploring and learning. The site once held three major temples to Hera, Rhea, and Zeus (with the ladies rightly positioned to keep an...
Turkey 2015
Saturday, in Istanbul once more. A group of ANCH students opted to visit the conservation laboratory associated with the nearby Yenikapı site. Here, in 2004, as excavations for Istanbul's underground metro proceeded, workmen encountered the remains...
